Emergence in Complex Systems

As realized for the first time in 1980s, quantum many-body systems in reduced spatial dimensions can sometimes undergo a special type of ordering which does not break any symmetry but introduces long-range entanglement and emergent excitations that have radically different properties from their original constituents. Most of our experimental knowledge of such ``topological" phases of matter comes from studies of two-dimensional electron gases in GaAs semiconductors in high magnetic fields and at low temperatures.